Bitcoin Cash Researchers Propose a New Transaction Ordering Rule

This week four Bitcoin Cash (BCH) researchers and developers proposed a different transaction sorting process for the BCH protocol called ‘canonical transaction ordering.’ The proposed method would sort transactions against their identifiers, rather than the current topological transaction ordering rule, making it easier to for the network to process very large blocks.

A New Transaction Ordering Rule Proposed for Bitcoin Cash

Researcher Joannes Vermorel (Lokad).

Joannes Vermorel (Lokad), Amaury Séchet (Bitcoin ABC), Shammah Chancellor (Bitcoin ABC), and Tomas van der Wansem (Bitcrust) have published a new paper that proposes to change the current topological transaction ordering rule within the BCH network. The paper called ‘Canonical Transaction Ordering for Bitcoin’ argues that a canonical ordering process would be more efficient and allow for better scaling. Currently, consensus rules process transactions in a list form where remote peers forward transactions to their neighbors. The way it works right now the list must be topologically sorted, but if the rule was changed to a canonical method that works with blocks as a set, as opposed to a list, it enables BCH to process very large blocks.

The researchers state that the change makes for some “compelling” use cases.

“First, it allows to produce compact proofs of transaction inclusion/exclusion, making chainless apps more capable,” explains the paper.

Second, it gives a newer degree of control to Bitcoin participants to localize their transaction within blocks.

More Efficient Block Propagation and the Possibility of Chainless Apps

Ultimately the new process would make block propagation and emissions more efficient, explains the proposal. Software implementations are simplified and proofs of transaction inclusion are improved. The researchers detail that the results allow network participants to utilize their bandwidth capacity more efficiently by “propagating as much information as possible ahead of time prior to the emission of a new block.”

“The CTOR offers the possibility for any participant to zoom into a block to identify whether a transaction is found or not without processing the whole block,” the proposal emphasizes.

This property is of high interest because chainless apps gain the possibility to verify flows of transactions without being encumbered by an arbitrarily large blockchain.

CTOR can make block propagation more efficient and enable the possibility of ‘chainless apps.’ A higher resolution of this photo can be found at http://media.lokad.com/bitcoin/taxonomy-schema-2018-05-07.pdf

The paper published on June 12 mainly discusses the importance of alleviating computational load going forward and CTOR could help the chain process giant sized blocks with ease. Bitcoin Cash supporters on forums and social media seemed to favor the idea, and conversed about whether or not this consensus change would be added to the upcoming hard fork slated for November.

What do you think about the proposed method of canonical transaction ordering? Do you think developers should add this idea to the next upgrade this November? Let us know your thoughts on this subject in the comment section below.